The Mysterious Case
by PoppySam
Summary: Harry just can't figure out this case. Not-so-luckily for him, Malfoy's arrived to 'help'. Next chapter due tomorrow!.


**A/N: Hey guys, thought I'd try my hand at a bit of Drarry writing. Involves not-too-heavy-slash and a bit of mystery and intrigue. Enjoy and feel free to review!**

Harry sighed and leant back in his creaky chair, propping his legs upon his desk. _Damn chair,_ he thought, rubbing his temples. The chair in question was old, slightly uncomfortable and rickety, but it had once been the chair of Mad-Eye Moody, former Chief Auror, and so Harry didn't have the heart to get rid of it. Harry dropped his hands to feel along the underneath of the armrest and his fingers soon found the familiar groove that was perhaps the result of a stray spell or maybe a mistake in manufacture, he wasn't sure. His day had been entirely awful, and he wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up under his scratchy blanket and procced to forget the whole horrid business. As Chief Auror it was his responsibilty to attempt to solve any case that was handed to him, but the case he had been working on for the past two weeks seemed to be unsolveable. Harry had been an Auror for the past seven years and Chief Auror for two, and although there were many cases that caused him trouble, there had been none so mysterious and elusive as this one.

The strangest thing that Harry had noticed was that the perpetrators seemed to have no idea what they were doing, yet they had managed to completely avoid detection. The events that had occured had little finesse or structure to them, and they seemed to be completely haphazard, almost random in nature. It was intriguing and somewhat baffling to Harry, and it annoyed him. He took off his glasses, setting them on the table so that he could rub at his eyes in frustration, but then had to put them back on as a blur popped her head around the corner.

"I'm finishing for the day, Chief. You should too."

Rosie smiled at him, a smile which Harry had to force himself to reciprocate.

"Yeah, you're right. I'm going to head home now, would you mind doing security? Thanks Rosie." Harry said, and the woman nodded, tucking a short strand of sandy blonde hair behind her ear. She disappeared back behind the door and Harry stood up and stretched before donning his cloak and heading out towards the Ministry floo network.

When Harry fell from his fireplace coughing some minutes later, the first thing that he noticed was a faint smell of apples. The second thing that he noticed was a hastily scribbled note that had been charmed to flutter across the screen of his tv set. He went and plucked it from the air and fell back onto his couch, groaning as he caught sight of the familiar handwriting.

_Harry,_

_I came to drop the kids off and you weren't here. Again. This is the third time this year. Had you forgotten about them? The house is a mess, I can't let my kids stay here. It's probably bad for their health!I've changed my plans for their sake, not yours, and I'm taking them with me and Dean on our holiday. You're the father of my kids Harry, and I will never be able to hate you, but I feel like you're trying to **make** me hate you. I realise that you're job is important to you, but you are a father. You've become so irresponsible, the opposite of what a father should be. Don't worry about the kids for a while. I'll let them come visit when we get back to England._

_Ginny_

Closing his eyes, Harry dropped his head back in exsaperation. How could he have forgotten that he was meant to be home to pick up his children? An image of Lily crying popped into his head and he stood up and reached into his pocket, pulling out a mobile phone. He pressed a few of the keys before putting the phone to his ear and began to pace around the room. After reaching the voicemail tone three times on three seperate numbers, he picked the note back up and scanned it again.

_PS. I've taken those strange machines off the kids. We're magical, Harry, not muggle. We don't need them. If you want to speak to them, you'll have to send an owl._

With a anguished cry of "Fuck!" Harry threw his phone against the wall and then drew his wand. A quick spell incinerated the note, and he decided to write a reply and letters to the children in the morning when he wasn't so worn out and emotional.

The next morning saw Harry waking with a decidedly bleak outlook on life. His alarm rang with an obnoxious air, and he hit it a little harder and more times than was required to turn it off. His shower water was tepid and he could not bring himself to make the effort of using magic to make it warmer. When he went into his kitchen to make breakfast Harry also found that he had ran out of coffee. Swearing loudly, he ran himself a glass of water and sat down at his table to write letters to Albus, James and Lily. Once he had done so he wrote out a short note to Ginny that simply said: 'I'm sorry. Please give these letters to the kids.' Once he was sure that his owl, Pudgey, had the letter firmly grasped in his beak, he picked up his cloak, cast Reducio on his briefcase and apparated on the spot.

The familiar red telephone box shone like a beacon in the distance and Harry trudged towards it, hitching up his cloak. Because of the circumstances of the previous night and morning, it was fair to say that Harry was not concentrating on his surroundings, and so did not notice the stranger who walked past on the other side of the road. He didn't hear the whispered spell, or the tickle of magic, and carried on in blissful ignorance while the stranger apparated away.

On his way to his office Harry made his best attempt to avoid all interactions with people, but due to being Harry Potter, this was unfortunately inevitable. He plastered on a halfhearted grin as he waved hello to several of his co-workers, and all but ran to his office door before shutting it hurriedly and leaning back against it in relief.

Someone in the room cleared their throat impatiently, which caused Harry to start and draw his wand. There, sat in his little old rickety chair was none other than Draco Malfoy.

"Finally Potter. Are you always this tardy for work?"


End file.
